


A Very Cousy Christmas

by Persiflage



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Director Daisy Johnson, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, POV Phil Coulson, Pre-Relationship, Slow Build, The Retreat Safe House (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 03:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12950442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Daisy and Coulson will be spending Christmas at the Retreat this year.





	A Very Cousy Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts), [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).



> Written for one of the 25 Christmas/Winter Holiday prompts: Buying the Christmas tree.

“You want to what now?” Daisy asks, sounding baffled. Coulson supposes that he can’t blame her for her confusion – it probably sounds like a mad idea.

“I want to go and buy a Christmas tree,” he repeats.

“For the Retreat?” she asks.

“For the Retreat. Unless you’ve changed your mind about going there?” He wonders uneasily if she has changed her mind. She seemed really onboard with the idea a couple of days ago when he first mooted it: since everyone else is going to be away visiting family or friends, he thought they could go to the Retreat – do something different rather than hang about the base like a couple of sad losers who don’t have any friends or family. (They have both, of course, it’s just that their friends are their fellow SHIELD agents, and their family is each other since Daisy’s father doesn’t know her.)

“I haven’t changed my mind about that,” she assures him quickly, as if she senses his worries. It wouldn’t surprise him – Daisy’s always been excellent at reading people, especially him.

“Good.” He tries not to be too emphatic about it, but he can tell he’s been less than successful by the look she gives him. She gets up from her desk and circles it to stand beside him, resting her ass against the edge of the desk as she looks at him. 

“This is a bigger deal to you than you let on, isn’t it?” she asks gently.

He doesn’t realise his hands are fidgeting until Daisy wraps one of hers over both of his, holding them still. “Phil.” Her voice is as soft as her expression, and he sighs quietly. 

“Yes,” he admits. “It’ll be the nearest thing approaching a family Christmas I’ll have had since – well, I don’t actually know when – probably since my days in the Academy, when my mom was still alive.” He pulls one of his hands free of hers, then covers her hand with his. “I know you’re not big on family holidays or the capitalist commercialisation, but – “

“Phil,” she interrupts him, and clasps his forearm with her free hand, drawing his body towards hers. “You don’t have to explain or justify why you want to have a traditional sort of Christmas with your surrogate family. I get it.”

“Daisy.” He realises that he sounds pained as he says her name – he can’t help it, though. He wraps his arms around her. “You are not my surrogate family. There’s nothing surrogate about you. I care about the rest of the team, of course I do, but you are my family now. As you once said to me, we’ve been through too much together for me to think of you in any other way.”

She swallows audibly, and tightens her arms around him. He can see her eyes are moist with unshed tears. “Phil,” she whispers. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He shakes his head slightly. “I need to say more nice things to you.” He says it lightly enough, but he means it, too, and he’s sure she knows that he does.

She chuckles softly. “I can’t argue with that plan.” 

“Good.”

“So, Mr Deputy Director, when do you want to go and buy this Christmas tree?”

He can’t help smirking at her when she calls him that. “Well Director, I thought we could go tomorrow since we’re leaving for the Retreat early on Monday.”

“That sounds like a good plan. Is there an optimal time of day for buying Christmas trees?”

“Well, it’s probably best if we go in the morning – I don’t know how many the sellers will have left this close to Christmas.”

She nods. “Okay. Why don’t you book one of the SUVs to take – I assume that’ll be big enough?”

He chuckles softly. “Yeah, Daisy, I’m not planning on buying a monster tree.”

“Just checking,” she says, with a smile curling the corners of her mouth. “Anything else we need to buy?”

“Well, some decorations for the tree, and for the Retreat itself if you can bear to have it decorated.”

She gives him a look. “I said we’d have a traditional Christmas, which means we go the whole nine yards: tree, decorations, ugly Christmas jumpers, mulled wine – I’m assuming you know how to make mulled wine?” He nods, and she smirks. “Figured you would. What else?”

“Well, a traditional Christmas should also including baking Christmas treats – cookies, perhaps?” She nods this time, eyes lighting up at the suggestion. “And watching a holiday movie or two. We’ll also need some properly festive music.”

Daisy laughs softly. “Well, I did say the whole nine yards.”

He can’t help grinning at her. She actually looks excited by the prospect, which is pleasing – he wants to give her at least one nice Christmas – they’ve never had the chance before. And he knows that the Christmases she had as a child were not much, even if she did happen to be with a foster family at the time. 

“So shopping trip in the morning – do you reckon the Base’ll be safe in Mack and Elena’s hands?”

He snorts. “I imagine Mack will grumble, but Elena will be secretly delighted – I’m fairly sure she’s angling for my job.”

“You wish,” Daisy says with a snort. He raises an eyebrow. “She’s gunning for my job.”

“I’m sure she’d do a good job in time.”

“But not until you retire, huh?” she teases.

“Well,” he says, and she laughs again, then hugs him. 

“Maybe it’s shallow of me, but I’m kinda looking forward to our shopping trip.”

“It’s not shallow,” Coulson says immediately.

“You’re biased, Phil.”

“Yup,” he agrees cheerfully.

She laughs, then lets go of him. “If we’ve got an extended shopping trip in the morning, I’d better get back to the paperwork – it won’t do itself, alas.”

“I call that rude,” he says, and she shakes her head at him before moving back around her desk, while Coulson goes in search of Mack and Elena to tell them that he and Daisy will be out in the morning.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

“What about this one?” Daisy’s looking at a dwarf Christmas tree. Coulson wanders over from the taller tree he’d been inspecting.

“I think we can risk something a bit bigger,” he says, “unless you want a smaller tree so there’s less of it to decorate.”

She snorts. “As if that makes a difference.” At his quizzical look, she says, “I don’t doubt you’d do the tree all by yourself if I chose to opt out.”

He smirks a bit. “Yeah.”

“Then we might as well buy a 5 foot tree as the 3 foot one.” She moves toward the taller trees, bumping her arm against his as she passes, and he wonders if she’d mind if he put his arm around her. There’s no doubt that the nostalgia of tree buying is making him feel sappy. She glances back at him, and he feels a strong surge of love at the realisation that she’s actually enjoying this. 

“C’mon, Deputy Director, we don’t have all day to spend doing this, not when there’s all the other stuff to buy as well.” 

As soon as he steps up beside her she hooks her arm through his, and he’s startled by the gesture, then his surprise melts into satisfaction. 

Fifteen minutes later the salesman is helping Coulson to load their tree into the back of the SUV, as Daisy pays the man’s wife. They climb into the front of the SUV once the tree’s on board, then Coulson pulls out of the parking lot, and heads towards the nearby town where there’s a farmer’s market that he plans on hitting for some of their food supplies.

“That lady thought we were married,” Daisy tells him casually, and Coulson feels his heart beginning to thump.

“She did?” he asks, his voice sounding a lot calmer than he feels.

“Yeah. She said nothing beats your first Christmas together as a couple.”

“What did you say?” he asks curiously.

“I just laughed and thanked her when she wished us a great Christmas.”

“You didn’t correct her?” He’s surprised, but also charmed by the idea.

Daisy shakes her head. “To tell you the truth, I was so relieved that she hadn’t made me as Quake, that I didn’t care what else she thought about us.”

“So you don’t hate the idea of being married to me?”

She gives him a funny look – which he supposes is hardly surprising. “Why would I? You’re my best friend, and the one person who’s always believed in me and valued me. And besides being a decent guy, you’re sexy and handsome. Who wouldn’t want to be married to you?”

Coulson feels completely floored by her remarks, and he’s half relieved when she changes the subject to ask what supplies he plans on buying at the farmers’ market. 

After the farmer’s market, they head to the nearby out of town mall to get the rest of the things they want, and Daisy insists that they split up at one point so she can buy him ‘a little something’. Of course he tells her that she doesn’t need to buy him gifts, and she, unsurprisingly, tells him that she wants to. Since he’s curious to know what sort of gift Daisy would get him, he agrees to her proposal, but he insists that they shouldn’t spend more than $20 dollars.

“It’s the thought that counts,” he tells her, “not the money spent.”

She rolls her eyes at him a little. “You’re so sappy, Phil.”

Since he cannot argue with that, he just shrugs and looks away. A moment later her arm snakes around his waist and she gives him a brief squeeze. 

“Just so you know, I like you being sappy.”

“Just as well,” he says lightly.

She chuckles, then surprises him by pressing her lips briefly to his cheek before she lets go of him. “Let’s text each other when we’re ready to meet up again.”

“Okay.” He waits until she’s moved away into the throng of last-minute shoppers before touching his fingertips to the spot on his cheek that she kissed. He shakes his head slightly, telling himself that he shouldn’t read too much into the gesture, then he heads towards the store that he thinks will be a good place to look for the gift he wants to get for her.

Thirty minutes later they’re reunited in front of an indie coffeeshop where they get themselves coffee and a pastry apiece before they head to the next store to buy decorations for the tree and the Retreat’s main room.

By the time they’ve got everything on Coulson’s comprehensive shopping list, it’s nearly one, so they grab some sandwiches and fries, then make their way to the SUV to eat their lunch before they return to the base.

“Thanks for coming with me today.”

Daisy smiles at him. “Thanks for asking me. It was more fun than I expected it to be.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t a drag.”

“Nothing I do with you could ever be a drag, Phil.”

He feels heat in his cheeks, and feels a bit self-conscious that he’s embarrassed by her compliment. “Thank you,” he says, trying for a casual tone.

“I’m guessing you’ll want to leave for the Retreat fairly early tomorrow?” she asks.

He nods. “If that’s okay with you and, you know, crises willing.”

“After breakfast, then?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.” She pulls out her cell phone, and Coulson starts up the SUV and makes himself concentrate on driving back to the Base, rather than dwelling on the prospect of spending two days alone with Daisy at the Retreat.


End file.
